Space -- A Cluttered Life: Middle Class-Abundance (Ep. 3)
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- Опубликовано: 23 янв 2013
- For middle-class American families, real estate inside the home can be as precious as the land underneath. In this final installment of a three-part series, UCLA anthropologists track how 32 families organize and prioritize their living space, with kitchens as command centers, bathrooms as bottlenecks, and master suites, in some cases, remodeled into hotel-like sanctuaries. [11/2013] [Show ID: 24701]
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Instead of paying $80K to remodel anything, people should spend 80 days decluttering.
I love this series despite the focus on clutter and how humans are struggling with letting go, its almost beautiful to see the sentimental attachment to love and life we all have. I never want to forget my grandma and having things that remind me off her makes it feel like she is still with me. My mind can’t handle so many tasks day after day so having a item near instead of having to use my mind to remember is a cheat code imo.
Not to sound too critical, because I appreciate these families that agreed to opem up their homes for study...but when I saw the "Focus Lucas" on the bathroom mirror, I was wondering how much better Lucas might be able to focus without having to look at all the visual clutter on the bathroom mirror and in the home in general. I think that's something we're all learning more about as time goes on.
I do struggle with clutter but I am on a journey to clear my space and mind. I have stopped buying stuff as that is the most important step and I am (slowly) getting rid of stuff. These houses actually made me feel better about my own house as generally they were worst.
oh my god this makes me feel like doing the arm sweep on every surface in my house
I know. My grandma has an apartment that is filled with stuff... you know the place has stuff, you can clearly see it... but she is such a great organizer & home decorator that it doesn't feel like a cluttered house. She is amazing with arranging, rearranging & placing items so well that when visitors come over they don't feel overwhelmed with the items. I have this ability too. I have tons of stuff, boxes, books, Transformers figures & such, but you don't feel that it's a cluttered place.
Here its different, the master bedroom is not the most redecorated room, by far. Living room, kitchen and bathroom are probably the rooms we spend the most money on here. (Norway). But maybe because we keep less kiddy stuff in the living areas...?
Ironic that this video was preceded by an ad trying to sell me more stuff.
I guess I only THOUGHT my house was cluttered.
I stockpile on hair products, bath tissues and school supplies. Food will expire, so I don't stock on them, unless they are rice and beans. Those can be stored in bins and they won't go bad. Anyways if I have too much hair products, I usually give them away to people I know who use them. The people are so grateful and happy when I give them the box dye or the new sealed shampoo. ^_^ My students get thrilled when I let them keep the fancy mechanical pencil or when I give them a supply they need for another class (such as a ruler, dividers, compass, protractor, calculator or any item that I tend to know that are needed so I stockpile them). Stockpiling isn't bad when done right and when not for greedy notions (i.e. only for you). I grew up in a large family with the mentality of helping each other. I grew accustom to helping large number of people, so when I started to work at a high school, I just extended that assistive mentality at a grandeur scare. :) When you place relationships with other people above materialism and commercialism, you start prioritizing everything differently. You start viewing objects as just tools to better peoples' lives, and if you can provide that for others and see them progress you feel such a gush of positive energy. Of course, there are always nay-sayers, and negative folks out to cover up other peoples' sunny day. That is life. The good thing is if you have enough good, positive people around you the negative won't matter.
i hate to see a cluttered fridge door. thats just disgusting to look at
Wow. I no longer feel like my house is cluttered after watching this!
Purchasing quantities when on sale is cost effective when they are products you use regularly. There is nowhere to recycle many electronics and many plastics. Pickup of large items would be a lifesaver.
Best Buy does it. We gave city pickup on almost anything else.
People will remodel their bedroom over the bathroom or kitchen as doing those rooms is a MAJOR issue and you might actually have to move out while it is done. Super interesting series!
those bathrooms are dirty
How do people live in so much clutter and mess? Don't any of them clean regularly and throw things away? I mean a pizza coupon two years out of date, did she move it every time she cleaned the fridge door, or just not clean it for two years?
yes! way too much clutter I can't take it
I know some men that are surprised to hear, that fridges need to be cleaned at all. My grandfather, a professor at a very good university, an otherwise highly intelligent man, was also surprised that food expires in the fridge. He had so little interest in cleaning that we would come over to do a monthly purge of molded items from the fridge etc...
Ashlea Berry yes. I can barely watch this video. But it reminds me what I've been delivered from. There IS freedom !
some people have weaknesses where others dont.. most homes are cluttered but not necessarily dirty or nasty but just unorganized after having baby I was the same. ..I needed help to get it together
Yes, having a baby is a whole other thing...you do everything your baby needs in the main living area...feeding, changing...it's a question of convenience, of not walking to get something all the time and putting it back 20 times a day...my home was much more neat before the baby came.
Clocks have been in kitchens since they were invented. Timing cooking is important. Duh.
We called our only bathroom “the family room”.
I just don't understand how the parents can put so much emphasis on their bedroom and not on their kids' bedrooms. I know when I was growing up I was stressed out all the time because of the clutter, but I didn't know what to do, it's not like I was the adult. It's fine and dandy to be selfish sometimes, but spending up to $80,000 on a master remodel that does basically nothing and leaving the rest of the house that your kids inhabit just as awkward, cluttered, and not nice as it was before is disgusting. I mean, God, throw some mint green paint on the walls, get a new duvet, donate half your stuff and remodel the fucking kitchen or bathroom. $80,000. That's ridiculous. You could put that into remodeling the entire fucking house if you forgo the contractor and the labor. Has no one heard of DIY?
Yup. Totally ridiculous. Our new tiny house will actually cost about $30 000. I can't imagine spending 80 k on a bedroom. Ridiculous. After years of amassing stuff my husband and I stumbled upon minimalism and living a simple life...The trick is to declutter, not to buy a bigger house so it can hold more stuff, 80 % of which you can't find, because you have too much stuff. Crazy.
Roslyn Dixon The obvious reason a family would enhance a master bedroom is to increase the overall value based on market comps. It is Real Estate 101. A home is an investment. A person that buys the home in the future may not have kids and a undersized master may be a deal breaker.
pennellkay In the West Los Angeles market you can easily get close to 80k by adding a master suite. Most of the average homes are 1.6 million plus.
+pennellkay That is what I meant....there is not any house in Los Angeles for $80K unless you are living under a bridge. Almost every single family home in a decent area of Los Angeles is over 600K and that is a low number for a run down fixer upper. I know the market well, I am a RE Agent and have owned real estate that I lease out to tenants. You can add $80K of additional home equity by adding a large master suite (if it is well done). I am not sure what market you are in, but in Los Angeles it is not too far fetched.
The biggest problem is how messy they are. If they had the same amount of stuff, but organized in a more aesthetically pleasing and functional way, that would be a great improvement! Having big, ugly, useless expired pizza coupons on the fridge for TWO YEARS?!? That's pure laziness.
I can't stand the clutter on the fridge
I wish I had kids...sigh. I feel like I missed out on a cluttered loved life.
Interesting stuff...about stuff
Stuff on fridge, bad idea , looks messy & cluttered.
So the refrigerator is like a head up display HUD for the Chief Operating Officer (generally a woman). Wife controls the family's resources (food) and weekly activities. "Not a lot of activity in the master bedroom" - check.
The color scheme of the living-room allows this huge painting of a car blend with the large light brown recliner (larger to minimizes the paintings' size). The throw pillows has various tones of brown, tan, beige & blue markings that balances & tones down the huge blue painting. The window at the end side has curtains of brown, gold & blue that tones down the mural more. Take the painting out & the room doesn't work. That's how powerful skilled decorating is. Pity a lot of folks don't have that.
I would like to know the correlation between unorganized, dirty, cluttered living spaces to financial debt. I have a feeling those that are very messy, disorganized, and frankly live in a filthy home are the ones that have racked up a lot of debt. Maybe I am being very presumptuous and making a large generalization but I would like to know the answer to this correlation question.
I call BS. I'm messy, and I don't owe anyone a penny. I pay off my credit card every month. Etc. Etc. Sorry to screw up your hate-a-thon.
Robin Lillian I have in-laws that make 6 figures and live in a small paid-off townhouse, paid-off cars, college funds already set, no debt to speak of, and they are PIGS. 2 kids, 3 cats, 3 dogs (no yard) fish, hamsters, etc, but they *never* clean. Won't even clean when they have family visiting from out of town - they rent a hotel room for the weekend and hire a maid service to do it for them. Still cannot wrap my head around their lifestyle, it's ridiculous...
Our lives and minds are sloppy , messy, and without order. A metaphor for us....
How come visual enthos aren't done on other places?
EXACTLY. It amazes me how hoarding people can be. I just have always been the type of person to think I have what I need and no more. What I have is very good quality in terms of furniture and furnishings and all of my stuff is minimal and PAID FOR. We have gotten away from living simply. Need vs. Want. Why did my ex-wife feel the need to hoard junk mail? She's not the only one. Drove me crazy!!! Maybe that's why we are divorced. Wish it was that simple.
I've never seen one bathroom for an entire family. Usually the number of bathrooms correspond to the number of bedrooms. Once you have a third or fourth bedroom, you would have a second bathroom.
LittleLulubee I grew up in a home with 5 bedrooms and only one bathroom.
LittleLulubee Older homes are typically built like that.
Only in the US or the well-off in Europe.
so, what is wrong with nostalgia any ways? - isn't this just that things aren't neat and in some sort of order? There are friends of mine who have larger houses and have a place for all of this stuff, but the point is they have it, but it doesn't look cluttered. Where is the anthropology pictures of these homes?
All package foods future Health issues .
Those bathrooms are not from the same houses as the other rooms shown.
Less is more! Get organized ppl..... Ugh
The kitchen being the center is perhaps an american thing? Around here, it's the living room that is the center: we eat, work, watch tv there, not in the kitchen
Where?
Lisbon, Portugal.
Probably because in Lisbon you live in apartments with small kitchens, right?
Maria: I live in America, and we eat & watch tv in the living room, too.
continued... People these days are so obsessed with minimalism that they don't understand that one doesn't need to throw keep sakes, photos, & memorabilia. One just has to learn how to decorate the home that allows one to keep the items visible without it being too noticeable. I have large mural paintings, particularly of cars. I have this one huge blue paining of a Dodge Viper that is in the living-room. People barely notice this 8 x 3 ft painting due to my abilities of decorating around it....
Sell all that crap or give it to the poor.
Can't there be any " middle" when dealing with humans ??? ... A. no
That comment is called a "perfect trolling".
Man, anthropologists use such fluffy language.
Are you positive this is middle class in these videos? Middle class houses don't look like this in New England that is for sure.....oh well...California is much different I guess....
Yeah it seems lower middle class at best
No surprise. Kitchen-centricity is central to the oral fixation and eat-and-shit focus of American culture.
Thanks. Toys have taken over. Today they go back to the room they belong in and what there is not room for goes to the thrift store.